The Power of Social Media for Millennials
The explosion of food on various social media channels is undeniable. My classmates scroll through health food blogs and watch one Tasty video after another during class. Instagram has blown up with pictures of cheese dripping off a slice of pizza, decadent ice cream sundaes loaded with caramel, cookies, and candies galore, and carefully-crafted matcha lattes on cafe tables. Evidently, we just love to take pictures of food.
Millennials aren’t just snapping photos to document what they eat, but also to decide where to eat. Just the other night, three friends and I spent at least five minutes trolling a restaurant’s Instagram before we decided which item to order off the menu. As I was searching for just the right brunch venue for my mom and me, I made sure to scroll the Instagram photos from each restaurant before making a reservation. And whenever I see a particularly mouthwatering photo on Instagram, I tap the picture to find out where it’s from so I can add the restaurant to my constantly growing list of new places to try.
Being able to see a picture of a restaurant’s menu items has always been a major factor in determining what we order. The same phenomenon explains why cookbooks are filled with photos of the products of its recipes. With the rise of Instagram, we now have those photos available to us even before we decide where to eat, so a restaurant’s Instagram presence is becoming a major component of its ability to attract customers.
Restaurants are learning to produce aesthetically pleasing food because, beyond their own Instagram presence, they cannot control the photos posted of their food. Customers will add geotags and hashtags that link the restaurant to the photos they post of their food, so the prettier food is, the more attention the restaurant will receive. “Social media is the tool for finding new places to eat,” confirms Justin Schuble, the highly coveted photographer and Instagram influencer, @dcfoodporn.
I have no doubt that the power of the most popular food-based Instagram accounts, often known as “influencers,” is growing. Restaurants now call up these social media gurus, offering a free meal at some of the hippest, most expensive restaurants in exchange for posting a picture or two to their Instagram pages that often offer access to hundreds of thousands of followers. Social media is undoubtedly influencing at which restaurants millennials are choosing to eat.
As I watch this phenomenon continue to grow before me, I have to wonder, how far does that power go? Would these highly coveted Instagram influencers be willing to support or refuse a business on the basis of its ethics and not just the quality of its food? This question begs asking in light of the recent disclosure of sexual harassment allegations that have popped up throughout the restaurant industry.
As recently as this past winter, numerous celebrity chefs have faced sexual harassment allegations, as The New York Times reported. A few of the high-profile chefs accused include John Besh in New Orleans, Charlie Hallowell in Oakland, Calif., and Ken Friedman and Mario Batali in New York. To restore the reputations of their restaurants, the accused restaurateurs evidently needed to step away from operations immediately. After that, the next steps vary depending on the restaurant. Co-founders and managers are still trying to determine the best course of action; there have been public apologies, debates regarding the income the accused chefs should be allowed to receive, and discussions on how to best move forward.
But perhaps what is more relevant to us, as fans and sometimes long-standing customers of these restaurants, is how we should choose to respond. Do we simply refuse to eat at these restaurants anymore? Do we frequent them slightly less than normal? Do we go so far as to openly condemn them on our social media pages?
I’ve decided we should take a page from the book of the James Beard Foundation, which recognizes the nation’s top restaurants, chefs, and restaurateurs annually at its gala in May. According to The New York Times, in light of the recent allegations, the foundation advised its voters to institute new criteria — criteria that extended beyond the typical standards of restaurant service and food quality. Now, candidates must also possess “the values of respect, transparency, diversity, sustainability and equality.”
We won’t make any progress by openly condemning restaurants on our social media accounts, but we will make progress if, moving forward, Instagram influencers require certain standards of behavior from the restaurants they choose to work with. The first step was to call to attention the inappropriate misbehavior that has been a part of kitchen culture for so long and to finally put an end to it. From now on, our job will be to honor those restaurants that uphold high standards of ethics and behavior among managers and employees in addition to high standards of food quality and service.
With the power that Instagram influencers are able to exert over where we are choosing to eat comes the responsibility of highlighting and supporting those restaurants that are deserving in all aspects of the business.
